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I run quite a lot of portable apps, although mostly from a folder on my hard drive. I like to back them up onto usb drives and also copy them directly between my two laptops.

I'd like a program that would create a folder full of nothing but shortcuts pointing to the various apps in my portable folder. This way, if I move the apps around, create directories, rename things etc, I could easily auto-generate the shortcuts again. The shortcut folder could then be added onto my desktop or as a taskbar toolbar in an instant.

Here's how I imagine it working (slightly inspired by the recent IconAnyFolder coding snack): The shortcut creator would allow me to designate the top level directory, and then it would create shortcuts to any .exe file in that folder, and then search recursively one level down and add shortcuts to any .exe files it found there. Any folders not including an .exe file would be searched further, and so on.

Well, that's what would work for me, since occasionally I have older versions and messy stuff like that stored within the folders of newer versions, and so I wouldn't want the shortcut creator to find them. Also, many of the portable apps have executable plugins within their directories, which I wouldn't want shortcuts to. But I imagine it could be configurable to either find all .exe's or to stop searching recursively at each found .exe as I suggest above.

ShortcutFolder successfully generated a load of shortcuts but unfortunately it's not really usable because there are shortcuts to over 150 Portable Gimp plug ins, various uninstall exe's, and some extra exe's with deceivingly similar names inside "App" folders.

If it's not possible to stop the search loop in any given path once an exe has been found (as per my description below) then could it be an option to select how many levels of subdirectory to search? That would pretty much solve this for me.

By the way, I couldn't get Shortcutter to work. I tried to insert or edit but clicking on "browse" gave me the message "Press OK to continue".

It doesn't auto-create shortcuts, but my ClutterBuster app can handle relative paths. (requires a bit of editing of the ini file, in a text editor though)

Put it at the root of your USB drive and run it.

Right click a button, select an .exe file to associate with it. (it only works with .exe files) The exe file must contain an icon or the button will look blank. Once you have all the buttons set, close it and it will save the settings to an .ini file. Open the .ini file in notepad and edit the entries so they are relative paths.

It has 100 buttons, so it can hold quite a bit.

If you copy the entire contents of your usb drive to another folder, like on your laptop, you can create a shortcut to ClutterBuster on your desktop or taskbar's quicklaunch and the relative paths will still work. (I have used a smaller version of this to bundle collections of small apps with a preconfigured toolbar for launching)

suleika - I have the same problem with shortcutter. Pressing the Browse button gives the message "Press OK to continue". (running WinXPSP2). Too bad. This is exactly what I need to manage a wiki "master links" folder. Anyone know of an updated version?

Loop,%rules%{ If (%A_Index%source="" And %A_Index%target="" And %A_Index%files="" And %A_Index%ignore="" And %A_Index%recurse="") Continue LV_ADD("","",%A_Index%source,%A_Index%target,%A_Index%files,%A_Index%ignore,%A_Index%recurse) If %A_Index%active=1 LV_Modify(LV_GetCount(),"Check")}LV_ADD("","","","","","","")

Gui,97:Add,Picture,xm Icon6,%applicationname%.exeGui,97:Font,BoldGui,97:Add,Text,x+10 yp+10,AutoHotkeyGui,97:FontGui,97:Add,Text,xm,This program was made using AutoHotkeyGui,97:Font,CBlue UnderlineGui,97:Add,Text,xm GAUTOHOTKEY,www.AutoHotkey.comGui,97:FontGui,97:Add,Text,y+0,`t

This is related to this idea, so i figured i'd post it here in case somebody might find it useful. It is related in that it does the opposite of what you want.

It takes a folder of shortucts and copies the actual files over to a destination of your choice.

Quote

' Purpose: A simple Synchronization/Multiple Folder to One Folder' script. ' Create a directory full of shortcuts to programs/files/folders' that you want to copy to a destination folder' Run this script either' a) from that directory with the destination folder as a parameter' b) from anywhere with the destination folder as the 1st parameter' and the source folder (with the shortcuts in it) as the second' parameter'' Notes: WARNING - Will overwrite files without prompting!' If you make changes please send me email, might go to spam, so' be careful

here's the code for it, it's a vb script. so save it as .vbs and pass it the correct parameters to run it.

[copy or print]''CopyShortcutTargets.vbs'' Purpose: A simple Synchronization/Multiple Folder to One Folder' script. ' Create a directory full of shortcuts to programs/files/folders' that you want to copy to a destination folder' Run this script either' a) from that directory with the destination folder as a parameter' b) from anywhere with the destination folder as the 1st parameter' and the source folder (with the shortcuts in it) as the second' parameter'' Notes: WARNING - Will overwrite files without prompting!' If you make changes please send me email, might go to spam, so' be careful :)''Written by Vixay Xavier,'Version 1.0 -vixay.xavier@IGNORE.THIS.gmail.com' Remove IGNORE THIS from email address before mailing it out' Don't know how effective this is but eh, it's worth a shot :)' ' Source/Help taken from:' === "bertha_index.vbs"'Keep Bertha Surfin Heavy Industries,'a division of Keep Bertha Surfin Electrical Concern'Version 1.0 - KeepBerthaSurfin@Hotmail.com' === "LogToFile.vbs"' http://www.naterice.com/blog/template_permalink.asp?id=43

'Setting this to true will time stamp Each'message that is logged to the log file'with the current date and time.bIncludeDateStamp = True

'This will set the log file name to the'current date and time. You can use this'option to create incremental log files.bPrependDateStampInLogFileName = True

'Specify the log file location here. Path'must contain a trailing backslash. If you'would like to log to the same location as'the currently running script, set this'value to "relative" or uncomment out the'line below.'sLogFileLocation = "C:\LogFiles\"sLogFileLocation = "relative"

'Specify the log file name here.sLogFileName = "CopyTargets.log"

'You can set whether or not you would like'the script to append to an existing file,'or if you would like it to overwrite'existing copies. To overwrite set the'sOverWriteORAppend variable to "overwrite"sOverWriteORAppend = "append"'-------END LogToFile Configuration-------

' Run the Function :)Call CheckParameters

Sub CheckParameters()' First thing, check the argument list for a directory.' If they didn't specIfy one, use the current directory.

Sub LogToFile(sMessage) 'LogToFile.vbs 12-15-06 'This script is provided under the Creative Commons license located 'at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ . It may not 'be used for commercial purposes with out the expressed written consent 'of NateRice.com

If bEnableLogging = False Then Exit Sub

Dim oLogFSODim oLogShellDim oLogFileDim sNow, sLogFile

Const ForWriting = 2 Const ForAppending = 8

Set oLogFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

If sLogFileLocation = "relative" Then Set oLogShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") sLogFileLocation = oLogShell.CurrentDirectory & "\" Set oLogShell = Nothing End If

skrommel - The updated shortcutter program doesn't work. The target browse button doesn't load the directory selected and the program never actually runs when one adds a new entry into the rules table.

update: Actually the program will run the example rules that it comes with, but it appears not to work with mapped drives? Was it perhaps designed that way?

Shortcutter v1.1 as posted earlier in this thread had 3 problems for what I was seeking to accomplish.

[1] The target directory input browse dialog wouldn't work properly, failing to actually record the selected target directory[2] The recurse option would create shortcuts for files found in the subdirectories ONLY, skipping the files in the root source directory[3] Without the recurse option, no shortcuts were created for files in the root source directory

The attached code changes the logic of the program. When the recurse option is selected, shortcuts are created for files in the source root directory and files in all the subdirectories. When the recurse option s not selected, shortcuts are created for all the files in the source root directory only. And the target directory browse button problem is fixed.

This code has not been extensively tested, and being brand new to AutoHotKey my code changes surely are a bit of a cludge This could be coded better by someone more familiar with AutoHotKey. In any event, it appears to work on my short tests, so I pass it along for anyone who wishes to use it.